Mobile devices such as cellular telephones, smart phones, and other handheld or portable electronic devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), headsets, MP3 players, etc. have become popular and ubiquitous. Such mobile devices are being increasingly used to hold and process large amounts of data, including word processing files, photos, MP3 files, etc. Given the large amounts of data that can be stored and processed by mobile devices, it is also of increasing interest that mobile devices be capable of easily and effectively communicating with other mobile devices so as to allow for rapid and effective (and controlled) transfer of data between mobile devices.
A variety of communication methodologies and protocols are already widely available for enabling communications between multiple mobile devices. Some of these methodologies and protocols allow for users to simply, by way of issuing a simple command (or even simply positioning a given mobile device into proximity with another mobile device), cause specific communications linkages to arise between specific mobile devices. The establishment of such communications linkages between specific groups of two or more mobile devices, which can also be referred to as “pairing”, is found for example in the context of Bluetooth-enabled mobile devices. Pairing among such mobile devices can be achieved when one or more users perform actions on a keypad or with a navigation button on at least one of the mobile devices. Once the pairing has been achieved, a variety of types of data can then be transferred between the paired devices.
Bluetooth-enabled mobile devices can be configured for automatic pairing with other Bluetooth-enabled mobile devices. Automatic pairing (in at least some circumstances) can occur between any two (or more) such mobile devices that happen to be within range of one another, without discrimination based upon the mobile device. Consequently, in at least some such circumstances, data available for transfer by a given mobile device may not be sufficiently secure, insofar as there is no guarantee that the other device with which the given mobile device has been paired is in fact a device with which the data should be shared. Alternatively, in lieu of such automatic pairing, pairing between Bluetooth-enabled mobile devices can be achieved by way of manual commands. However, while manually-achieved pairing of Bluetooth-enabled mobile devices improves the likelihood that any paired device to which another device wishes to transmit data is an appropriate device for receiving that data, the providing of manual commands from a human operator can be onerous and inconvenient, as it can require navigation through menu structures and the pressing of one or more buttons on one or more mobile devices.
Therefore, for the above reasons, there is an opportunity to develop a new method and/or system for enabling two or more mobile devices to transfer data.